The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus for forming an image on a recording medium.
With an increasing degree of sophistication in the process of printing carried out in the image forming apparatus in recent years, print condition is coming to be set and managed for each page of the recording paper to be inputted (see Patent Document 1 referred to hereinbelow). In such an image forming apparatus, the print condition is set for each page and an image is formed according to the print condition for each page, whereby a great variety of high-quality outputs are achieved.
In the image forming apparatus, the conditions of finishing, e.g. stapling and punching, in addition to the image quality setting conditions are set for each page as print condition. Such finishing conditions are getting more and more highly functional and complicated, with an increasing degree of sophistication in the process of printing. Further, in addition to the process of finishing, the image forming conditions includes such high-functional processing as addition of page information, e.g. pagination and layout processing, e.g. recording of images of plural documents on a sheet of recording paper.
(Patent Document 1): Official Gazette of Japanese Patent Publication Tokkai 2002-99179.
However, an increasing degree of function and complexity in print condition is accompanied by setting errors. In the aforementioned background prior art, resetting requires much labor and time when a setting error has occurred. In other words, the operator has to repeat the setting in conformity to the predetermined procedure from the beginning for each page, and to perform confirmation and correction again.
Especially, when inputting complicated print condition covering a large amount of pages, much labor and time are needed and a setting error may occur. This will cause a high degree of operator effort and concentration.
Further, to avoid faulty image formation outputs caused by such setting errors, preprinting can be performed. In the process of the preprinting, the pages for each job are printed out and the print condition set by an operator is confirmed.
However, even if a preprint is carried out, when the print condition is required to be changed, similar to the problem as mentioned above, there remains the problem that resetting requires much labor and time.
Thus, it is important to develop an image forming apparatus capable of simple resetting of the print condition.